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PODCAST

Best Seat on the Couch

Alex, Iris, Marcus, and Michael

A podcast where 4 close friends discuss their favorite animated movies and TV shows together. Come for the intelligent discourse, stay for the lighthearted humor, and follow for the hottest takes.

leisure animation & manga

All Episodes

01:16:44

216 | Toy Story 4

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/04/21

With our episode on Toy Story 3 fresh in our minds, the gang picks up where we left off with 2019's Toy Story 4, a film that cements itself as the—wait a minute, why'd they make another one? Toy Story is literally the best trilogy of all time! Join us as we try and figure out the most important question of all: does this movie have a reason to exist? Some of us say yes: the animation is ridiculously high quality now, Woody still has genuine character growth to experience, and Forky ends up

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01:06:02

215 | Odd Taxi

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/04/14

If Alex can make Iris break with his episode intro, you know it's gonna be a banger. Praised as one of 2021's best anime series, Odd Taxi is a short mystery-esque series set in Tokyo where all of the characters are anthropomorphic animals, centering our walrus-man Odokawa, the taxi driver. The show initially touches on the pleasant sentimentality of meeting all of these people with their own unique lives with trials and tribulations, but soon ups the stakes when Odokawa gets tangled up with

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01:00:53

214 | Toy Story 3

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/03/31

With our episode on Toy Story 2 fresh in our minds, the gang picks up where we left off with 2010's Toy Story 3, a film that cements itself as the conclusion to one of the best film trilogies of all time. With many years having passed between 2 and 3 both IRL and in-universe, we here on the Couch get to feel like we've grown up with Andy, and get hit with some of the best emotional payoff at the end of the film that we've ever seen: Andy goes to college, Woody finds new purpose with a

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01:23:20

213 | Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/03/31

Marcus's second entry in our multi-month saga in the Mobile Suit Gundam Universe takes us into the franchise's Universal Century, but (perhaps questionably) the gang is starting at the very end, with 2010's Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn. Everyone's intros can be boiled down to some variation of "this show doesn't work without prior knowledge of the Universal Century," and by far our biggest criticism of the show is that it's a confusing, lore-heavy, politically

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00:54:17

212 | Toy Story 2

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/03/17

Once again the gang turns back the clocks to follow up our episode on Toy Story with our discussion on 1999's Toy Story 2, a film that really kickstarts the Pixar meme of "so what if ____ had feelings?" and sets the foundation for the entire Toy Story franchise...that's still going on to this day! This movie introduces Jessie and Woody's Roundup, the evil Emperor Zurg, and the philosophical conundrums of identity, mortality, and immortality! It's a fantastic evolution of

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00:55:36

211 | How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/02/24

Just in time for New Year's resolutions to begin falling apart, the gang brings a full-blown Japanese PSYOP anime designed specifically to get the single Otakus to hit the gym: How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? So the question is...does it succeed? As far as edutainment animes go, Iris said it best: the 'edu' part is good, the 'tainment' part is where we have some issues. It's got excellent advice for beginners or those who have no gym experience while also providing

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01:42:26

210 | ONE PIECE (Part 6)

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/02/03

ONE PIECE fans around the world can finally close the book on Eiichiro Oda's 1155-episode first season, with the Elbaph arc kicking off season 2 in April 2026! Okay, people who actually watch this anime know we're on season 21, but it's a funny meme. Alex once again assembles panelists Ayana, Katy, Lony, and Owen to discuss the episodes that aired in 2025 and bounce ideas around some reasonably important stuff like the Knights of God, Scopper Gaban, Imu using the Domi Reversi, and more

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01:09:08

209 | The Princess and the Frog

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/01/20

The film that heralded the end of Disney's 2D-animated era, 2009's The Princess and the Frog came as a last hurrah after Disney's foray into Chicken Little, then was followed immediately by Tangled...so where does it stand amongst the Disney greats? Its animation and soulful soundtrack certainly elevate it to that illustrious Disney standard, and Marcus can't get through this episode without gassing up Keith David, not to mention that we get a lovely picture of 1920s New Orleans life

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01:50:52

208 | Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/01/13

Alex is thoroughly out-weebed on this week's episode of Best Seat on the Couch, as Marcus, hot on the heels of Love, Death & Robots and Transformers One, arises with a multi-month saga planned around the universe of Mobile Suit Gundam, beginning with 2022's The Witch from Mercury. Longtime Gundam fans may find this choice of a beginner's series questionable, but the show is simultaneously a good primer for some of Gundam's most important thematic tenets while also being a fresh

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01:16:56

207 | Lightyear

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2026/01/06

Happy New Year and welcome back to Best Seat on 2026's Couch! Our first episode of the new year calls back to our 99th episode on Toy Story, as Lightyear takes the mythos of Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear character and creates a whole narrative and backstory to him that, apparently, in-universe inspires Andy to buy the Buzz Lightyear toy — fancy that. The film itself stars Chris Evans as a much more Captain America-esque Buzz Lightyear, plenty of time travel, legitimately gorgeous animation and

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01:24:59

206 | A Place Further than the Universe

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/12/16

After a brief holiday hiatus, the gang is back to the recording studio with another anime about high school girls doing...things! Like our episodes on Yuru Camp and Bocchi the Rock! in years past, this slice-of-life series released in 2017 appears often on top anime lists and provides a genuinely sweet and enjoyable story hidden behind its unassuming appearance. We get travel montages! Antarctica! Penguins! Inter-friend-group squabbling! The friends we made along the way! And a pretty baller

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01:09:28

205 | Moana 2

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/10/28

'Tis the season for sequel films here on the Couch, and coming off of our discussion of Moana not too long ago, we've got the perfect perspective on its totally-not-planned-to-be-a-TV-series-originally-but-was-then-haphazardly-converted-into-a-feature-film sequel, 2024's Moana 2. It's a tall ask to follow up a film like Moana and while the gang agrees that the story and narrative feel pretty fresh as far as sequels go, there are a few...other issues...with this film that do elicit

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01:12:50

204 | Transformers One

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/10/14

Within the Transformers sphere, the last couple of decades have been owned by Michael Bay's live-action series of Transformers films which are certainly...films. But we don't talk about live-action films on this podcast! Instead, we're talking about 2024's Transformers One, a film that harks back to the G1 days from the 80's and soft reboots the franchise on the silver screen. It's got a star-studded voice cast led by Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry, absolutely gorgeous

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01:15:18

203 | Incredibles 2

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/10/07

You'd have to go aaaalllll the way back to Episode 8 of Best Seat on the Couch to catch our thoughts on Disney/Pixar's animated 2004 blockbuster The Incredibles, and after 14 long years of development, the sequel ended up being a commercial and critical success...but did it impress the four of us? Incredibles 2 ends up still being a pretty excellent and entertaining watch, but there are aspects of its story and its villain that feel recycled a bit, and for a film that rides on the success of

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01:03:27

202 | Jackie Chan Adventures

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/09/30

Two and a Half Asians returns to the Couch this week to talk about the legend Jackie Chan, the man who brought the Hong Kong action movie to Hollywood while also infusing a level of comedy yet unseen within that genre. This 2000-2005 childhood animated series pays homage to that style of film while adding excellent characters, well-choreographed action scenes, and a unique mystical element to the mythos of this fictional version of Jackie Chan. While it is firmly a Saturday Morning Cartoon™ and does

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01:12:23

201 | Moana

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/09/16

Maybe it's surprising that Moana hasn't popped up on the Couch until now, especially considering we've already talked about the more recent Encanto, but the gang agrees that it's a great way to kick off our post-200 slate of episodes with gorgeous and cutting-edge animation, excellent dual protagonists, a penchant for the mythology of the Pacific Islands, and Lin Manuel Miranda's well-crafted post-Hamilton soundtrack. Perhaps the fact that we've already discussed progenitor

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02:16:14

200 | Anniversary Episode: The 2nd Couchcast...

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/09/10

Nearly 3 years after recording our milestone 100th episode of Best Seat on the Couch, the gang returns for another round of patting ourselves on the back and laughing at our objectively hilarious jokes with another 100 episodes in the rear-view mirror. This second centennial caps off a much more streamlined podcast than our first, and the four of us agree that we've collectively leveled up our discussions, our analysis, and even our speaking skills as we've fully hit our stride in the

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01:02:03

199 | Love, Death & Robots (Season 4)

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/08/26

At long last, the gang arrives in the current day with 2025's fourth and most recent season of Love, Death & Robots ❤️❌🤖, and y'know, maybe it's gonna be the last one. After Marcus's near transcendent experience with season 3's finale Jibaro, for Tim Miller to immediately follow that up with Can't Stop...let me say this: at the very least, we're able to find 4 separate episodes to talk about as unique favorites in this 10-episode season. And the gang does have some

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01:14:25

198 | KPop Demon Hunters

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/08/19

In this episode, the gang (who collectively doesn't listen to k-pop) attempts to understand the nuances of ~i d o l c u l t u r e~ as we tackle 2025's KPop Demon Hunters, from the same Sony Animation Studios that brought us the Spider-Verse series and The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Perhaps the most notable aspect of this film is the music, which is currently charting over actual albums from actual musicians (not to say that TWICE ain't a real musical group), and with a number of us

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01:28:10

197 | Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Best Seat on the Couch ·

2025/07/29

As far as slice-of-life animes go, Frieren completely shatters the mold with a brand new premise in the fantasy-DnD-adjacent genre and a level of quality (in terms of adapting a manga) that really hasn't been matched before or since its 2023 release. With the eponymous main character experiencing the passage of time so differently than the peers of her past and of the present, it's incredible how well this show treats flashback scenes, the passage of time within the world and its evolution,

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219 results

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